The Pulpit Commentary — Jonah — Section 96

believed in by many-sfaves treated wHh fearful violeuce-the terrors of the Inquisition brought down on heretics-offence or many at the clemency of Lord Canning after Indian Mutiny-Ireland must be scourged with fire and sword-scoundrels, said Carlyle, must suffer the unmitigated doom of scoundrels. God's methods more merciful -he seeks to win, to humble, to reclaim, to convert. 3. His readiness to sacrifice a vast community to carry out his own idea. His want of regard for human life- a common feeling of the time-in Jonah's view all that vast mass of life was not to be considered, provided a blow was struck that would vindicate his authority, and impress hie people. 4. Impatience of spirit, giving birth to rash de.sires and prayers. Loss of self-control is a very humiliating experience in one who desires to he a servant of God. " He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city" (Prov. xvi. 32). But "he that bath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls" (Prov. xxv. 28). How unlike Jonah was now to what he had been before 1-W. G. B. Vera. 6-11.-God's remonstranai with Jonah. "So Jonah went out or the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and eat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city,'' etc. Jonah appears. to have gone out of the city and taken up his abode in the booth before he knew that Nineveh was to be spared. As Noah entered the ark before the Flood came, and waited for the moment when the judgment of Heaven W!luld verify the warnings of a hundred and twenty years, so Jonah entered his booth before the expiry of the forty days, and waited the moment when the judgment of Heaven would verify his warning. We can imagine him speculating on the form the judgment would take: "what would become of the city "-whether it would perish as Sodom and Gomorrah perished, or as the Tower of Babel, or as the walls of Jericho had fallen down in presence of the ark. That something was to happen he appears not to have had the slightest doubt; this may account for hie mortification when he found that, after all, the city was to be spared. The revulsion of feeling after his mind had been wound up to the highest pitch of expectation, and the sense of having been befooled before men, may explain the vehemence of hie feeling. In rebuking Jonah it pleased God to do so by means of an acted parable--the parable of the gourd. L THE aotraD (or Palma Christi, palmcrist, as some suppose) PREPARED. (Ver. 6.) Further indication bow God is Lord of the whole earth and all therein. This book: shows God controlling things inorganic (winds and waves, eh. L, and the east wind, eh. iv. 8); vegetables (the gourd); things fortuitous (the lot); animals (the great fish); reptiles (the worm); also men, both·Jonah and the Ninevites. The great object, both of the transactions themselves and of this record of them, is to vindicate the universal sovereignty of God, both natural and morn!. The gourd partly natmal, partly super- natural; God's purpose in it was to deliver Jonah from his grief. So far as supernatural, a pleasant token that God had not forsaken him. Natural effect to ward off sun, cool the air, prevent feverish irritation, keep mind and body calm and cool Jonah probably suffered much before it grew up, but would reel immediate relief when it came. Learn herein God's ability to effect important results by simple means-influence of mind on body, and body on mind: "Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd." II. 'l'RB GOURD DESTROYED. (Ver, 7.) Again an important result due to a trifilnit cawe--a worm. Figuratively and spiritually, "the worm Jacob threshing mountains,.. (Isa. xii. 15). Apparent collisions and contradictions in nature-one force seems to destroy what another creates-as if there were a Siva as well as a Brahma-in the· plan of God all work together-it was alike of God to prepare the gourd and to destroy it-the purposes of Divine discipline often require opposite influences at different times, but all are to be regarded as parts of a gracious plan: "I will sing of mercy and of judgmPnt" (Ps. ci. 1); " All things are yours, whether the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come" (1 Cor. iii. 22). Ill. JoNAH's VEXATION. (Ver. 8.) Aggravation of his uneasiness by the vehement east wind-whatever comfort of mind might have come through the remarkable origin of the gourd was counteracted by this wind, which seemed a token of God's displeasl11'9 -combined distress of body and miod in Jonah-impulsiveness of his uature again apparent-contrast between his two faintings-at eh. ii. 7, "when my soul fainted within  TIIE DOOK OF JON.A.II, [OH, IV, 1-11.